logisheets-mcp
A local MCP server for building, editing, and analyzing real Excel-compatible spreadsheets with named blocks, live formulas, pivots, charts, and scenario tools.
Create, load, save, and export
.xlsxworkbooks.Create named blocks/tables, convert existing cell ranges, describe schemas, and set block descriptions.
Add, delete, and move block rows; write cells by
(block, row_key, field); set field rules for formulas, validation, and editability.Build engine-derived analysis blocks and pivots (group-by/cross-tab), then edit or refresh them.
Evaluate Excel-compatible formulas, including
BLOCKREF/BLOCKREFS.Preview hypothetical changes/scenarios, trace dependencies, and goal-seek inputs.
Create, update, list, and delete charts bound to blocks or A1 ranges.
Use raw cell read/write tools, list validation violations and defined names, and create sheets.
Runs locally over stdio with no network, keeping one active workbook per session.
Click on "Deploy Server".
Wait a few minutes for the server to deploy. Once ready, it will show a "Started" state.
In the chat, type
@followed by the MCP server name and your instructions, e.g., "@logisheets-mcp Create a 'MonthlySales' block with rows for Jan–Mar, add a total column as =units*price, and save it to sales.xlsx"
That's it! The server will respond to your query, and you can continue using it as needed.
Here is a step-by-step guide with screenshots.
logisheets-mcp
A real spreadsheet engine your agent can think in. Excel-compatible formulas
it doesn't have to do in its head, a table it addresses by name instead of by
coordinate, and a genuine .xlsx at the end that a person can open, audit and
keep using.
An MCP server over LogiSheets, a spreadsheet engine written in Rust. MIT, runs on your machine, opens no sockets.
The trouble with a grid
Ask a model for a five-year projection and it writes twenty formulas, each with
the row number adjusted by hand. That is where the silent mistake lives: one of
them reads B7 where it meant B8, the total looks plausible, and nothing
raises an error.
Then the sheet moves. Someone inserts a row at the top, deletes a year, adds a column. Every coordinate the model was holding is now off by one and it has no way to notice, so it spends the next turns re-reading cells to work out where things went instead of on the question you asked.
And every "what if" costs a round trip — write the input, recalculate, read the output, put it back. Sixteen scenarios is sixteen of those, and a scan that dies half way leaves a scenario behind in your model.
Related MCP server: Excel MCP Server
Blocks
A block is a named table on the sheet. Rows have keys, columns have names, and everything is addressed by those rather than by position.
A field's formula is stated once, for the whole column — not per cell. Add a row and it computes. There is no twentieth formula to get wrong.
A reference names what it means: the
pvfield of the row keyedY3. Insert a row above it and the reference still says the same thing, because it never said "row 8".The engine owns computed values. A formula field cannot be overwritten with a number the model worked out itself.
create_block proj fields: year, fcf, df, pv
set_field_rule proj.pv = fcf × df ← once, for the column
add_block_rows Y1 … Y5
describe_block proj
→ Y1 147.2727 Y2 144.5950 Y3 141.9660 Y4 139.3848 Y5 136.8506
… the sheet is then reshaped: two rows inserted at the top, a column at the left …
describe_block proj
→ Y3 141.9660 ← same answer, same address, nothing re-derivedBlocks are created by the agent as it works, so nothing needs preparing. Point it
at a blank workbook or at a spreadsheet someone emailed you — convert_to_block
adopts a table that is already in ordinary cells, reading the field names off the
header row and working out which column is the key.
The second session
The conversation that builds a spreadsheet is almost never the conversation that has to answer a question about it. A week later there is a new session, with none of the context, holding only the file — and what the file records is what that session can know.
A grid records coordinates. =B11*$B$3*(1-$B$4) is correct and means nothing
until the agent fetches the label column and infers that A3 describes B3.
The schema is where the meaning goes instead, and it is written into the
.xlsx: field names, the key column, which fields the engine computes, and the
rule behind each one. One list_blocks call and the workbook introduces itself;
one describe_block and the rules come back as
#FIELD("revenue")*BLOCKREF("assum","margin","v") — an explanation rather than
a second lookup problem.
The schema still only says what shape the records are. What they mean is
prose, so a block carries a description: a sentence or two on create_block, or
set_block_description for a table adopted later, saying what one row is, what
the non-obvious fields hold, and what a later reader must not touch. It is
stored in the file and comes back from describe_block, which is the difference
between the next session reading the intent and inferring it from column names.
src/cold-read.test.ts pins that down rather than
asserting it. It builds a model in one session, saves it, and reopens the file
in a second session sharing nothing with the first — own server, own workbook,
no memory. Then: list_blocks recovers every block's fields, key field,
computed fields and row count in one call; every returned rule is checked to
contain #FIELD or BLOCKREF and no A1 coordinate at all; the fresh
session writes a BLOCKREF formula from orientation alone and the engine agrees
with arithmetic done independently in the test; and trace names what reads an
assumption before anyone edits it. Cost is metered on the wire, over the same
text a host shows the model: 540 B for a five-row model, 545 B for a
hundred-and-five-row one, one call each. Reading a schema is O(columns);
reading a grid to understand it is O(cells). Asking for the data still costs
what the data costs — 11 kB for those 105 rows — and the point is that the
second session gets to choose.
Longer version, with the reasoning: docs/the-second-session.md.
Charts that recompute
An agent asked for a chart usually renders an image. The image is right once, and then the human changes an assumption and it is a picture of a number that is no longer true.
chart_from_block writes a chart into the workbook instead, and a chart there
stores references, never values:
chart_from_block rev value_fields: q1, q2 category_field: region
→ <c:val><c:numRef><c:f>Rev!$B$1:$B$3</c:f></c:numRef>That is a native Excel c:chartSpace in the saved .xlsx — the same object
Excel writes itself. Edit a source cell and the chart follows, in Excel or here.
Add a region to the block and it appears in the chart on its own, because the
series is bound to the field, not to the cells the field happened to occupy
when the chart was made: inserting rows or columns cannot leave it pointing
somewhere wrong. chart_insert does the same for arbitrary A1 ranges, for data
that never became a block.
src/agent-loop.test.ts asserts this from the file's
bytes rather than from the tool's return value: build a block, chart it, save,
unzip the .xlsx and check that the chart part exists and that its series are
<c:f> references into the sheet.
Benchmarks
Measured, not asserted. Against the two other MCP servers that work on a local
.xlsx — spreadsheet-kit 0.11.1,
which has its own Rust recalc engine, and
excel-mcp-server 0.1.8, the
most-installed one, on openpyxl:
this | spreadsheet-kit | excel-mcp-server | |
Write a formula, read its value | 30 | 30 |
|
Five-year DCF, value per share | 20.803603 · 15 calls | 20.803603 · 6 calls | formula text |
4×4 sensitivity, 16 answers | 1 call, 950 B | 16 calls, 1245 B | can't |
Solve backwards for an input | 1 call, 202 B | 18 calls, 1399 B | can't |
Reopen it later and explain it | 4 calls, 2.4 kB | 5 calls, 21 kB | 2 calls, 24 kB |
Answer again after the shape changed | 19.383943 |
| formula text |
Keep a handed-over file's features | 8 of 8 | 8 of 8 | 8 of 8 |
Reproduce it — one file per task, and each one runs all three servers:
npm run build # ours is driven as dist/cli.js
python3 bench/t1_compute.py # bench/t*.pyThe other two contestants have to be reachable first: spreadsheet-kit as an
amd64 Docker image, excel-mcp-server in a virtualenv at $BENCH_WORK/.venv
(default /tmp/bench-work). See bench/contestants.py
for exactly how each is started.
The tasks were committed before any other server's tool list was read
(bench/TASKS.md), every expected value is derived
independently in Python rather than read off a server's output, and tasks we
expected to lose are in the list on purpose.
Three caveats, so the table is not read for more than it says. "=SUM(A1:A2)" is
not a bug: openpyxl stores formulas without evaluating them, so that server
writes correct models but cannot answer a question about one. spreadsheet-kit is
a genuine peer, correct on everything it can attempt, and builds the model in
fewer calls than we do — our extra calls declare a schema, which is the trade
that pays off in the rows below. And on the reading row each server was reading
back a file it wrote, so only half of that margin transfers to a spreadsheet
that came from a person. The last row started at 0 of 8; writing the task is what
found that saves were dropping everything the engine had no opinion about.
Install
Requires Node 20+.
npm install -g logisheets-mcpFor Claude Desktop, add to claude_desktop_config.json (macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json; Windows:
%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json), then restart:
{
"mcpServers": {
"logisheets": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "logisheets-mcp"]
}
}
}Any MCP host that spawns a stdio server works the same way — Cursor reads the
same block from ~/.cursor/mcp.json.
Try it
Build me a three-year revenue model: 100 units at $9.50 growing 40% a year, with a 30% cost of goods. Then save it to ~/model.xlsx.
The numbers come back from the engine rather than from the model's guesses, and
the .xlsx has live formulas in it — change an assumption in Excel and watch it
recompute. To see the same thing with no LLM involved,
npm run build && npm run demo drives the real server over stdio and checks
every claim as it goes.
Tools
Thirty-two by default. Tool-selection accuracy falls as the list grows and every description costs context on every turn.
Tool | What it does |
| Start a fresh workbook, or load an existing |
| Write a real |
| The file as base64, for hosts with no shared filesystem. |
| Every sheet and block, plus where the next block should go. |
| A block's schema, keys, field rules, description, and optionally its values. |
| Evaluate a formula and return the value. Nothing is stored. |
| Create a named table. First field is the row key. |
| Adopt a table that is already in ordinary cells, in place. |
| Write what a block is for, in prose, into the file. |
| Add records — at the end, or |
| Remove records. |
| Reorder rows by key. Presentation only: no value changes. |
| Write cells by |
| Give a field a formula, a validation rule, or an editability rule. |
| A totals row under a table, generated from a recipe rather than written. |
| Change which fields it aggregates and how, keeping the ref name. |
| Cross-tabulate a block: one row per group, one column per value, live. |
| Reshape a pivot in place — and the only way to repair a broken one. |
| Bring a pivot's rows and columns back in line with its source. |
| Which cells break their field's validation rule, and why. |
| The workbook's defined names, and what each one refers to. |
| What edits would do, without doing them — one hypothetical, or a whole grid of scenarios in a single call. |
| What a cell reads, and what reads it, from the dependency graph. |
| What input makes an output hit a target. Searches inside the engine. |
| Add a sheet. |
| Chart a block by naming its fields. Follows rows added later. |
| Chart arbitrary A1 ranges — the raw-cell counterpart. |
| The charts on a sheet: type, title, and the ranges each series reads. |
| Reconfigure a chart in place — type, series, axes, labels. |
| Remove a chart. |
| Raw-cell escape hatch for data with no structure. |
Formulas are Excel-compatible plus BLOCKREF(block, key, field) for reading a
block cell by name. Inside a field rule, #FIELD("name") is the same row's
sibling and #FIELD("name", "key") is another row of the same block — the row
carrying that key, never a positional offset.
preview_changes and goal_seek are the two that change how a model gets
explored: each scenario runs on its own temp branch and is discarded, so a 4×4
sensitivity grid is one call returning sixteen numbers with nothing written to
the workbook, and an inverse solve is one call rather than one per bisection
step. trace answers the question formula text cannot — not what a cell reads,
but what reads it, which is what you want before touching an assumption.
Analysis blocks and pivots are summaries the engine derives. The agent
declares a recipe — which block, which fields, which function — and the engine
generates every formula from it, so renaming a source field rebuilds the summary
instead of breaking it, and a row added later is already counted. Both land in
ordinary blocks, so BLOCKREF("by_region", "East", "Q2") is one cell of a
cross-tab and can feed the next calculation. The alternative an agent reaches
for otherwise is reading the table into its context, adding it up and writing
the answer down, which produces a constant that is wrong from the next row on.
list_names is in the core surface and the three tools that write defined
names are not, which is deliberate. A defined name is a coordinate range with a
label on it: Sales = Sheet1!$B$2:$B$20 does not grow when a row is added,
which is precisely the fragility blocks exist to remove. But a workbook someone
else built may be full of them, and =SUM(Sales) cannot be read without
knowing what Sales covers — so reading them is orientation, and building with
them is reaching past the better tool.
One thing about pivots is worth knowing before trusting one: the numbers are
live, but the shape is not. No formula can add a row, so a group that first
appears in the source after the pivot was built is simply absent — every number
correct, the table incomplete, nothing that looks wrong. describe_block names
the missing groups and refresh_pivot reinstates them, which is why the pair
ships in the core surface rather than behind the flag.
Set LOGISHEETS_MCP_TOOLS=full for 73: undo/redo, formatting, merges, comments,
checkpoints, block move/resize, cross-block links, block permissions,
chart_suggest, defining and renaming names, raw row/column structure. Mutating tools carry MCP's
readOnlyHint / destructiveHint annotations so a host can gate them behind
approval.
Chart tools keep a namespace prefix where every other tool drops one. Inside
their namespace they are called list, insert, update and delete, and a
bare delete sitting next to delete_rows and delete_block_rows is a coin
flip for the model — which is the cost this whole section exists to avoid.
The file you get back
save_workbook writes a real .xlsx and returns an MCP resource link — a
uri, media type and size — rather than the bytes, which would cost ~280 KB of
context for a 200 KB workbook and teach the model nothing. Hosts that want the
file read it from workbook://current.xlsx; export_xlsx returns base64 for
hosts implementing no resources at all.
Formulas can be written out as BLOCKREF("proj","Y3","pv") for a person to read,
or resolved to plain coordinates for Excel to chew on.
One MCP session holds one active workbook, alive across tool calls — that persistence is what makes it memory rather than a calculator.
Reads and writes go wherever the server process can reach, which is normal for a local stdio server and the same posture as the official filesystem server. Run it as a user with only the access you intend it to have.
No network
No sockets, no ports, no telemetry. Your host spawns this as a child process and
they exchange newline-delimited JSON-RPC over stdin and stdout; the engine is
WASM in that same process, so a formula is a function call rather than a request.
An air-gapped machine is a supported way to run this. Checked rather than
asserted: after a full session — create a block, attach a field rule, evaluate a
formula, save an .xlsx — the process holds six pipes and no sockets, on no
listening port.
Development
A thin shell over three LogiSheets packages:
logisheets-runtime (the
headless engine), logisheets-logician (the tool definitions), and the
Rust/WASM core.
npm install && npm testTo work on the engine at the same time, check out
LogiSheets as a sibling directory, build
its packages, and run npm run link:local — that symlinks the three into
node_modules so local engine changes take effect without reinstalling. Re-run
it after any npm install.
To use it as a library, createServer returns the MCP Server, the
WorkbookSession and the tool map, so you can host it over any transport:
import {createServer} from 'logisheets-mcp'
const {server, session, tools} = createServer({mode: 'full'})License
MIT. Part of the LogiSheets project.
Available Tools
31 toolsadd_block_rowsA
Add rows to an existing block. Appends at the end by default; pass after_key or before_key to insert at a position instead. Each row needs a key; values is an object keyed by field name. Fields with a value_formula are auto-materialized by the engine — don't pass them in values. Validation/editability shadows for the new rows are auto-installed by the engine at InsertRowsInBlock time, so no follow-up is needed. Also inserts the matching sheet rows (one block per sheet-row assumption — extends the sheet so downstream rows shift down).
Inputs: rows (required), block (required), after_key, before_key.
chart_deleteADestructive
Delete a chart. Get the chart_id from chart__list. Undoable, but it removes the chart and its formatting.
Inputs: chartId (required), sheetIdx (required).
chart_from_blockA
Chart a block by naming its fields, instead of working out which cells they occupy.
The chart stays bound to the block: it plots whatever the named fields hold, so records added to the block later appear on their own and inserting rows or columns cannot leave it pointing at the wrong cells. A col-schema block works the same way as a row-schema one.
Use edit__describe_block or inspect first if you do not know the field names. Blocks with a "random" schema have no field axis and cannot be charted this way — chart their cell range with chart__insert instead.
Fields are held by name. Renaming one breaks the link (the series goes empty); moving its column does not.
Inputs: blockId (required), sheetIdx (required), valueFields (required), title, +4 more.
chart_insertA
Insert a chart that reads its values live from the given ranges — editing those cells later updates the chart.
Look at the data first so the series are right: a column of labels belongs in categoriesRef, each column of numbers is one series, and its header is that series' name.
References are A1 (B2:B10, or Sheet2!B2:B10 to read another sheet). The chart is placed below the data unless anchor says otherwise.
Inputs: series (required), sheetIdx (required), chartType (required), title, +3 more.
chart_listARead-only
List the charts on a sheet — id, kind, title, the ranges each series reads, and where the chart sits. Call this before updating or deleting one.
Inputs: sheetIdx (required).
chart_updateA
Reconfigure an existing chart in place, keeping its position. Anything left out keeps its current value; an empty string clears a text field (title, axis title, number format). Get the chart_id from chart__list first.
Inputs: chartId (required), sheetIdx (required), title, numFmt, +10 more.
convert_to_blockA
Turn a table that already exists in ordinary cells into a block, in place, without touching its values.
This is how you adopt a workbook someone hands you. create_block is for new tables and refuses to write over existing data; this one takes the data as it stands and gives it a name, fields and row keys, so you can address it as (block, row_key, field) and reference it from formulas by name instead of by coordinate.
Give position and the counts for the DATA only, leaving out any header row. Field names come from the header row — pass header_row, or leave it out and the row directly above the data is used when it looks like titles. fields states them outright instead.
The row key is inferred: the first column whose values are all present and all different. Pass key_field to choose. Whatever is inferred is reported back, so check it — the key is how formulas and later edits name a row.
Converting is a one-time cost: the block and its schema survive saving and reloading, and afterwards the region behaves exactly like one created as a block.
Inputs: name (required), sheet (required), position (required), col_count (required), +4 more.
create_analysis_blockA
Add a block that analyses another one — a totals row, sitting directly below the table it summarises.
It is an ordinary block that declares which block it analyses, so its result is addressable like any other: BLOCKREF("<name>", "<label>", "<field>"). That is the point of it being separate — a total you can only look at is much less useful than one you can reference.
What the engine does with the declaration: it GENERATES each field's formula from it, so renaming a field of the source rebuilds the total instead of breaking it, and the total tracks the source as rows are added. Do not write the formulas yourself.
By default every number field of the source gets a SUM and everything else is left blank; pass aggregates to choose. Removing the source removes this block with it.
Read it back with describe_block: the analysis reports analyzes, the source reports analyzed_by. Never sum an analysis block alongside its source — that counts the same numbers twice.
Inputs: source (required), name, label, aggregates.
create_blockA
Create a structured block (table) on a sheet. fields[0] is the row-key column — the value BLOCKREF matches on, so it has to be unique per record; it is ordinary data you can write. Block ref name (name) is used as the first arg to BLOCKREF/BLOCKREFS in formulas.
Field types supported:
'string' / 'number' — plain text/numeric cells.
'boolean' — cell stores 0/1 or TRUE/FALSE; UI renders ✅/❌ if host has the widget set.
'enum' (+ enum_id) — cell stores variant id; UI renders dropdown if host has the widget set. Watson auto-injects a variant-whitelist validation formula on the field so out-of-set writes light up as warnings even without widget rendering. Requires a prior define_enum_set call with matching id.
Rules (value_formula / validation / editability) are set separately via set_field_rule — this call only declares structure + initial rows. Auto-creates the target sheet if missing.
Inputs: name (required), sheet (required), fields (required), position (required), +3 more.
create_pivotA
Cross-tabulate a table: one row per distinct value of rows, one column per distinct value of columns, each cell aggregating measure.
The result is an ordinary block, so every cell is addressable: BLOCKREF("<name>", "<a rows value>", "<a columns value>"). That is what lets you put one number from it in a sentence or feed it to another calculation.
You declare the recipe; the engine generates every cell from it. Do not write formulas, and do not write into the block — renaming a field of the source rebuilds the pivot rather than breaking it, which is only true because nothing is hand-written.
rows and columns must be fields whose values REPEAT (a region, a quarter, a status). Pointing either at an id gives one row per record, which is the source table again, not a pivot.
IMPORTANT: a pivot's numbers are live but its SHAPE is not. When new values appear in the source, its rows and columns fall behind while every number in it stays correct — call build__refresh_pivot. describe_block reports when that has happened.
Inputs: rows (required), source (required), measure (required), func, +7 more.
create_sheetA
Create a new sheet in the workbook. Returns the new sheet index. Idempotent: if a sheet with the same name exists, returns its index without creating a duplicate. Typically the agent does NOT call this directly — create_block will call it implicitly when the target sheet is missing. Use it only when you want an empty named sheet up front.
Inputs: name (required).
delete_block_rowsADestructive
Delete rows from a block by their key. Missing keys are silently ignored. Also deletes the matching sheet rows (one block per sheet-row assumption). If you try to delete every row, the last one is kept and its cells are cleared instead — the engine doesn't allow rowCnt=0 blocks.
Inputs: keys (required), block (required).
describe_blockARead-only
Return a block's full structure for the LLM: identity (name, sheet, position), per-field schema, and row keys in order. Every field reports both what it IS — type, description, required, unique, default_value, and references for a field pointing at another block — and what currently guards it: the value_formula, validation and editability templates. All of it comes from the Rust schema, the engine's authoritative source, so the answer is the same in every host and survives a save/load.
Read a field's type and description BEFORE writing a value to it: the description is where the unit, the convention, or the thing-not-to-do is written down, and it is the only record of it. A type of null means nobody has claimed one yet.
analyzes and analyzed_by say whether this block is a table or a conclusion drawn from one. A block with analyzes set is an ANALYSIS block — a total row, a set of statistics, a pivot — and its rows are its own, not the source's. Never sum an analysis block alongside the block it analyses: that counts the same numbers twice. A field with aggregates set is engine-computed from the source; writes to it are dropped, and you change it by changing the declaration.
Pass include_rows: true to additionally include current cell values as rows[].values[fieldName]. Off by default to save tokens — use it when the agent actually needs to inspect data, not when it only needs the shape.
Inputs: name (required), include_rows.
edit_analysis_blockA
Change what an existing analysis block computes: which of the source's fields it aggregates, with which function, and the label its row is addressed by.
Use this to arrive at an analysis in STEPS. Summing every number is often nearly right and wrong in one column — a rate wants AVERAGE, a text column wants COUNTA, an id column wants nothing at all. Adjust rather than rebuild: the block keeps its ref name, so formulas pointing at it keep working, and it is one undo.
aggregates REPLACES the set outright — a field you leave out stops being computed and its cell goes blank. Read the current set from describe_block first if you mean to add to it.
This is the simple kind of analysis: one row, one number per column. For one number per GROUP, use build__create_pivot / build__edit_pivot instead.
Inputs: name (required), label, aggregates.
edit_pivotA
Change an existing pivot's recipe — what it groups by, what it measures, how, in what order, over which records — and reshape it to match.
Use this rather than deleting and recreating: the block keeps its ref name, so every formula pointing at it keeps working, and the whole change is one undo.
This is also the way to REPAIR a pivot whose recipe stopped resolving (describe_block reports pivot_is_broken) — for instance after a source field was renamed. A broken pivot reads 0 in every cell rather than erroring, so it must be fixed, not refreshed: a refresh fails the same way.
Everything you omit is UNCHANGED. What you pass replaces that part outright — filters: [] clears the filters, columns: null turns a cross-tab into a simple group-by.
Inputs: name (required), func, rows, order, +6 more.
eval_formulaARead-only
Evaluate an Excel-style formula in a private scratch cell and return the computed value. Nothing is written to user-visible cells. Returns {type, value} where type is one of:
"number" — value is a JS number
"str" — value is a string
"bool" — value is a JS boolean
"error" — value is the Excel error code (e.g. "#REF!", "#NAME?")
"empty" — value is null (formula returned an empty cell)
Use for:
Quick checks: "=SUMIFS(OrderStatus, "amount", "*")" → total
Sanity-test a candidate template before set_field_rule
BLOCKREF / BLOCKREFS lookups against any block in the workbook
Leading "=" is optional — it is added automatically if missing.
Inputs: expr (required).
export_xlsxARead-only
Return the workbook as base64-encoded .xlsx bytes.
Last resort. The bytes land in your context and cost roughly 1.4 KB of text per KB of file. Prefer save_workbook, which writes a real file and hands the host a link to it — the host can give the human the workbook without any of it passing through you.
Inputs: no named parameters.
get_cellsARead-only
Read the values (and formulas) in a rectangular range of cells, addressed by zero-based (sheetIdx, startRow, startCol, endRow, endCol). Returns only the non-empty cells, each with its A1 ref, value, and formula (if any). Use this for ordinary "what is in these cells" questions; for a single computed result you can also use build eval_formula. Reads at most 500 cells per call — narrow the range if it is bigger.
Inputs: endCol (required), endRow (required), sheetIdx (required), startCol (required), +1 more.
goal_seekARead-only
Find the input value that makes a chosen output equal a target — "what discount rate gives a value per share of 30".
Runs entirely on the engine's temp branch, so the workbook is never modified: this is a question, not an edit. The search happens inside the engine rather than as a conversation, so it costs one tool call instead of one per iteration.
Name both cells semantically as (block, row_key, field) or by coordinate as (row, col). Give between when you know a bracket; otherwise it expands outward from the current input value to find one.
Bisection, so it needs the output to move monotonically between the bracket ends and it finds one crossing. If the bracket does not straddle the target it says so rather than returning a number — a non-answer you can act on beats a plausible one you cannot.
Inputs: to (required), set (required), target (required), between, +2 more.
list_blocksARead-only
Orient yourself in a workbook: every sheet, every block, and for each block the fields you can reference. One call is enough to start writing formulas.
Per block you get its ref name (BLOCKREF's first argument), its fields in column order (the third argument), key_field — the column whose values BLOCKREF matches as its second argument — and derived_fields, which are computed by a rule and reject writes.
Use describe_block when you need a field's actual rule, or the row keys and values. next_block_start clears everything already on the sheet, blocks and loose cell content alike, so passing it as create_block's position will not land on top of data.
Omit sheet to scan the whole workbook; passing it restricts to one sheet.
Inputs: sheet.
list_violationsARead-only
Scan validation shadow cells and return every cell whose validation formula currently evaluates FALSE. Validation is advisory — the cell still holds its value, but the host UI renders a warning marker and you should treat it as "something the user/AI got wrong".
A field's rule is what its DECLARATION implies — required, unique, enum membership, reference existence — ANDed with whatever rule its author wrote. rule in the output names the declaration rather than quoting the generated formula, because the generated one is not something anyone typed. So a field with no rule text of its own can still appear here, which is the point: before the engine derived these, a required-but-empty cell raised nothing at all.
Also returns duplicate_keys: blocks where two records carry the same row key. That is not an advisory rule but a broken address — BLOCKREF resolves a key to the FIRST matching record, so the others are unreachable and every aggregate over the block double-counts, silently and without an error anywhere. The engine refuses to create a duplicate, so anything reported here came in with the file. Fix it by giving one of the records a distinct key before trusting any total over that block.
Also returns pivots_needing_attention. A pivot fails in a way no validation rule can see: stale means its numbers are each correct while whole groups are MISSING, and broken means its recipe stopped resolving so every cell reads 0 rather than erroring. Neither shows up as a red cell anywhere. Treat a broken pivot's numbers as unusable and fix the recipe; refresh a stale one before quoting any total from it.
Use this when answering 'why is something red?', 'what's broken after my last edit?', or before quoting any number you did not just compute yourself. It is the one call that answers 'is anything here untrustworthy' — the alternative is describe_block on every block, which is easy to skip and easy to forget.
Filters compose: omit both block and sheet to scan the whole workbook; pass either to narrow.
Pull-based on purpose: the LLM is turn-based, polling at decision points is cheaper than maintaining a live subscription. The host UI has its own per-cell push subscription for canvas warning markers.
Inputs: block, limit, sheet.
move_block_rowA
Reorder a block by moving one row to a new position, addressing both the row and its destination by key. Moves to the end when neither after_key nor before_key is given (same default as add_block_rows). Row order inside a block is presentation only — formulas address rows by key, so reordering never changes a single computed value. Use it to match a reading order someone expects, not to change the model.
Inputs: key (required), block (required), after_key, before_key.
open_workbookA
Start the workbook you will work in. Call with no arguments for a fresh, empty one; pass path to load an existing .xlsx from disk and work on the human's real file.
This replaces whatever workbook the session currently holds, discarding unsaved changes — so call it once at the start, not between steps. You do NOT have to call it at all: an empty workbook appears automatically the moment any other tool touches the session.
Prefer path over xlsx_base64. xlsx_base64 exists for hosts with no shared filesystem and costs enormous context for a file of any size.
Inputs: name, path, xlsx_base64.
preview_changesARead-only
Dry-run edits on the workbook's temp branch and report what they would do. Nothing is committed — the branch is discarded, so this is the safe way to explore a model instead of changing it and putting it back.
Two shapes. changes runs one hypothetical and returns every cell that would move, direct writes and cascaded recalculations alike. scenarios runs several, each on its own branch, and returns one result per scenario in order — that is a sensitivity table or a scenario comparison in a single call.
Add watch to get just the cells you care about instead of the whole cascade. A grid of sixteen scenarios over a model that cascades into 26 cells is 416 rows of diff to answer sixteen questions; watch makes it sixteen numbers. Name a cell semantically ({block, row_key, field}) or by coordinate ({sheet_idx, row, col}).
Inputs: watch, changes, scenarios.
refresh_pivotA
Bring a pivot's rows and columns back in line with its source.
Its NUMBERS were never stale — they are live formulas. Only the set of rows and columns falls behind, because no formula can add a row. That is exactly why this matters: a stale pivot shows correct numbers with whole groups missing, and totals taken from it are short with nothing to say so.
Call it before reading or reporting a pivot that describe_block flagged. Safe and cheap to call when nothing has changed — it reports that it did nothing.
Inputs: name (required).
save_workbookA
Write the workbook to a real .xlsx file the human can open in Excel. This is how you hand your work back — do it when the task is done.
Defaults to the path it was opened from, or last saved to; pass path to write somewhere else. Values, formulas and the block structure are all saved.
IMPORTANT — if the human is going to work on this in Excel, pass resolve_block_refs: true. Formulas that read blocks are written as BLOCKREF/BLOCKREFS, which only LogiSheets understands: Excel shows the saved numbers but turns those cells into #NAME? the moment it recalculates. Resolving rewrites them as ordinary A1 references so Excel can recompute the model. Leave it off when the file is coming back here — the named form is readable and survives rows moving.
The result carries a link to the workbook rather than its bytes, so the host can offer the human the file without any of it passing through your context.
Inputs: path, resolve_block_refs.
set_block_cellsA
Write one or more cells inside any block(s) in a single atomic transaction. Each change addresses a cell by (block ref name, row_key, field) — the LLM never deals with raw (sheet, row, col).
Pass changes as an array; one-cell writes are just length-1 arrays. Batching is the cheap default — putting N writes in one call is one transaction, one calc pass, one undo entry.
Rejected up-front (whole tx aborts) when any change:
targets a non-existent block / row_key / field, or
targets a field with a
value_formulaon its schema (engine-computed; use set_field_rule to change the rule instead).
Value can be a literal (string / number / boolean) or a formula prefixed with '='. null clears the cell.
Inputs: changes (required).
set_block_descriptionA
Write what a block is for, in prose, onto the block itself. Saved in the file and returned by describe_block, so it is how the next agent — or the next you, in a later session — learns what the table means.
Say what one row represents, what any non-obvious field holds, and anything that must not be done to it. Do not restate the field names; they are already visible.
Refused when the block reserves modifyDescription to its owner. Pass an empty string to clear it.
Inputs: name (required), description (required).
set_cellsA
Write one or more arbitrary cells on a sheet in a single atomic transaction (one undo step). Each cell is addressed by zero-based row/col. Content is a literal (string / number / boolean) or a formula prefixed with '='. null or '' clears the cell. For cells that belong to a block, prefer edit set_block_cells (it respects the schema); use this for plain, non-block cells. At most 200 cells per call.
Inputs: cells (required), sheetIdx (required).
set_field_ruleA
Attach declarative rules to a field. All three rule kinds (value_formula, validation, editability) are optional — pass only the ones you want to change. Omit a kind entirely to leave it untouched on this field; pass null to explicitly clear an existing rule.
Placeholders supported in formulas: #FIELD("name") — the same row's cell in field "name" #FIELD("name", "key") — field "name" on the row carrying that key, in THIS SAME block #KEY — the row's key value (quoted as a string literal) #PLACEHOLDER — the cell itself (validation/editability only)
The two-argument #FIELD is the only way to reach another row of the cell's own block: BLOCKREF is refused there (it depends on the whole-block vertex, so it would close a cycle). Use it for share-of-total or index-to-a-base-row columns, e.g. "=#FIELD("amt")/#FIELD("amt","TOTAL")". The other row is named by KEY, never by position — there is no "previous row" form, because rows can be reordered and inserted into, so a positional address would silently come to mean a different row. A running total (each row reading the row above) therefore has no rule form; write that column as ordinary cells outside the block. A rule that resolves onto the cell it is defining is rejected, as is a plain coordinate (A1/C3) landing inside the block — in a template a coordinate does not shift per row, so on the first row it would point at the cell being defined.
Engine behaviour after this call:
value_formula → cells in the field become engine-computed (no direct writes). Every row's formula is re-materialized.
validation → a
ShadowKind::Validationshadow is auto-installed on every row; warning markers refresh.editability → a
ShadowKind::UserEditableshadow is auto-installed on every row; the host permission patch reads it to gate writes.
Leading "=" on the formula body is optional; omit or include either way.
Inputs: block (required), field (required), validation, editability, +1 more.
traceARead-only
Follow a cell's dependencies, in either direction, using the engine's own dependency graph.
precedents— what this cell reads. Use it to audit a number: "why is value-per-share what it is".dependents— what reads this cell, and through which reference. Use it before changing something: "what breaks if I edit this assumption".
Both by default. Name the cell semantically as (block, row_key, field), or by coordinate as (row, col) with an optional sheet_idx. Results come back named the same way whenever the cell sits inside a block, so you get "assumptions.wacc" rather than a coordinate to interpret.
This asks the engine rather than reading formula text, so it sees through BLOCKREF, ranges and whole-column references, and it answers the reverse direction — which formula strings cannot.
Granularity matters when blocks are involved. The engine tracks block dependencies per (block, field), not per row, so dependents of one block cell is everything reading that FIELD — the queried row among them. Each edge carries scope: "cell" is exact, "field" and "block" are over-approximations, and approximate: true is set on the result when any edge is wider than a cell. Treat a field-wide answer as "at least these", not "exactly these".
Inputs: target (required), direction.
Tool Schema Changelog
Recent tool additions, removals, and schema changes observed during successful MCP inspections.
Loading tool schema changelog…
TDQS
Scored across 31 tools
Most tools have clearly distinct resource+action boundaries, and the block/cell split is explained well. A few pairs could cause misselection—set_cells vs set_block_cells, describe_block(include_rows) vs get_cells, and chart_insert vs chart_from_block—but the descriptions do enough to disambiguate them.
The dominant verb_noun pattern (create_block, set_field_rule, add_block_rows) is consistent and predictable. The chart tools break it with noun_verb names (chart_list, chart_update, chart_delete), and chart_insert/chart_from_block sit awkwardly together, creating minor but noticeable deviations.
At 31 tools this crosses the 'too many' threshold, even though the tools cluster into coherent groups like charts, pivots, blocks, and diagnostics. Several chart-related tools could be consolidated, and the surface is heavy for an agent to hold and route between in context.
The surface covers the full spreadsheet workflow well: workbook lifecycle, block CRUD, cell access, formulas, charts, pivots, analysis blocks, validation, and even dependency tracing and goal seeking. Minor gaps exist—no delete_block or delete_sheet, no explicit sheet listing, and no formatting/rename operations—but agents can work around them.
Maintenance
Related MCP Connectors
The Excel engine for AI agents: read, check and edit Excel models over MCP.
Every spreadsheet is a table: Excel, CSV, Parquet and JSON as SQL tables for AI agents.
AI-native data layer: sheets, databases and apps for every agent, with exact answers and audit.
A structured financial modeling layer for AI agents. Build, version, and audit financial models without drift, then export to Excel, from Claude or any MCP client. Learn more: https://layerz.cc/for-agents
Related MCP Servers
- AlicenseNot gradedqualityDmaintenanceEnables AI agents to create, read, and manipulate Excel files without requiring Microsoft Excel installation. Supports comprehensive spreadsheet operations including formulas, formatting, charts, pivot tables, and data validation.MIT
- AlicenseNot gradedqualityDmaintenanceEnables AI agents to create, read, and modify Excel workbooks without requiring Microsoft Excel, supporting operations like formulas, charts, pivot tables, formatting, and data validation.MIT
- AlicenseNot gradedqualityDmaintenanceEnables AI agents to create, read, and manipulate Excel workbooks without Microsoft Excel installed, supporting formulas, formatting, charts, pivot tables, and data validation operations.MIT
- AlicenseAqualityDmaintenanceEnables AI agents to directly create, read, edit, and save Excel (.xlsx) spreadsheets using natural language through the Model Context Protocol, supporting cells, sheets, formatting, and formulas without writing Python code.216MIT